Three Poems | Yelena Moskovich
POETRY
5/14/20251 min read
THE CALLING
To piss
(my bladder
is all blabber)
or not to piss ─
The calling!
Navel to the floor,
the stall door
stalling ─
Flores
for four-eyes,
senile love and loss,
seasons,
the cold tiles,
rosebuds in the frost.
ROCKET
Salved
whole
Theol-
sleeved,
halved
cattle,
Babel
bawled.
Gnat-
rimmed
bucket.
Star-
skinned
rocket.
VADIM
I.
The waves crack
like peeling an egg,
water legs,
toenails black,
toenails blanc,
not a spec,
you dawdle slack,
pooling shoulders, your own
dream,
Vadim,
a trim
would do you good,
do good, Vadim,
in between ─
II.
Water chips
into shells
heads or tails
they flip,
made,
not a shred
mad, your bed
dingy shade
swollen shack,
give back
Vadim,
a cure,
it is, it seems ─
could.
III.
Lip-wrecked,
a boy webbed
to a boy wept
where the waves crack,
threads
at the bottom,
noctem
water-bells,
done day,
dumb clay,
whitecap
vaulted ─
Dream,
Vadim.
Yelena Moskovich is a Ukrainian-born writer, author of four novels, Nadezhda in the Dark, A Door Behind A Door, Virtuoso, and The Natashas. She immigrated to the U.S. with her family as Jewish refugees in 1991, then solo to France in 2007 and back to the U.S. in 2024. Her work has been long-listed for the Dylan Thomas Prize, awarded the Galley Beggar Short Story Prize and named in the Guardian, Telegraph, and Irish Times Books of the Year. She's also written about literature, arts and culture in publications such as Vogue, Times New Supplement, Paris Review, Frieze, and the New Statesman. She has spoken extensively on the topic of diaspora writing and experimental literature as a keynote speaker, panelist, and guest author on platforms such La Grande Librairie on Channel France5, the National Centre for Writing in Norwich, and the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as well as chaired literary events for the Shakespeare & Company Bookstore in Paris.